Many devices commonly include various positioning systems to determine a current or past location of the device. For example, a smartphone, vehicle, or other device can be equipped with a global positioning system (GPS), accelerometers, gyroscopes, or other positioning systems to assist in determining a current location of the device at a particular time. Knowledge of the location of the device can assist in many endeavors, including navigation, data collection, or any other task in which knowledge of the location of the device is beneficial.
However, typical positioning systems and sensors generally suffer from some degree of noise, malfunction, or miscalculation. As such, positioning systems can be vulnerable to drift over long trajectories or sustained paths, resulting in location estimates which contain some degree of error.
As such, as an example, in the event that the path upon which a device travels in fact visits the same location upon two or more instances (e.g., exhibits a loop), the location of the device as determined by the positioning systems for such two or more instances may not perfectly align or otherwise correctly “close the loop.”